WW2 Air Crash Detectives

Information
Series 1: 6x60 | HD | 2014

FormatHD

Production CompanyLike A Shot Entertainment

Year of Production2014

Primary BroadcasterUKTV

From 1939 to 1945 thousands of young airmen met terrible ends not at the hands the enemy’s machine guns or because of the murderous flak of anti-aircraft fire, but in catastrophic accidents and training crashes. The staggering losses were not just limited to Britain; all over the world training flights, routine sorties and cargo transport journeys all sometimes ended in disaster.

Perhaps it’s not so surprising that, amid the weight of the human costs of the air war against Germany, these ‘hidden’ losses have been forgotten; but all the men in the aircraft that never returned signed up for the same war and they were all someone’s father, brother or son. The same letters went home to every family.

Luckily, there are those who are determined that those brave men should not be a footnote in military history. They’ve spent years investigating, uncovering, searching, probing and digging the crash sites – and there are hundreds of them.

They are the World War II Air Crash Investigators and now, for the first time, they have agreed to let us join them.

Episode 1: Lost & Confused

On a cold dark night in February, 1943, five trainees aboard a B-25 Mitchell Bomber struggle to find their bearings. Confused at their exact whereabouts the aircraft finally slams into Sharp Top Mountain high above the American town of Bedford in Virginia. It was the third training crash in the area that night - and the worse. What really caused this accident? Was it because of "Pilot Error", equipment failure, bad weather, or could the mission have been doomed from the beginning?

Episode 6: The Duke of Kent Crash

It is the 25th of August, 1942. A Short Sunderland Flying Boat slams into Eagle Rock, a remote hillside in the far north of Scotland, killing fourteen people on board. Miraculously, there is one survivor. But among the dead is His Royal Highness Prince George the Duke of Kent, the brother of King George VI. The Prince was a problem. With his death, the problem went away. It was let's say...convenient.

Episode 5: Conspiracy or Confusion?

August 3rd, 1944 - a C-47 transport plane, with a crew of four, is ferrying 24 trainee P-47 fighter pilots from the Bruning Army Air Field in Nebraska to the South Dakotan Pierre Army Air Field for advanced training. The pilot, Captain Stanley J Meadows, is forced to try and find a way through a wide storm front as the unique weather conditions found on the great plains of America conspire against him.